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Monthly Archives: April 2016

I’ve been having a think about making a series of paintings, on a smaller scale, with a limited palette of blue and red, working quickly and loosely. I rather like the outcome, and the process suits me perfectly. Sections of colour; paint that looks like paint, muted, bleeding puddles with lots of blank space. Pondering how beautiful a lot of little paintings could look on a white gallery wall… a small nail in each piece of paper, perhaps? More work of this ilk to follow…

I have been restricting myself to a limited palette of ochre, cadmium red and phthalo blue, figuring out where I can go with these colours. This is a brighter, optimistic painting – I think it must have been made on a sunshine-filled day!

Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture

Cheerful, mesmeric – and a little bit like a much needed hug.

I visited Tate Modern’s Calder exhibition for the second time last week – after the first viewing, it was blatantly apparent that I would have to come back. The exhibition has something of a hold on me – similar to the magnetic pull of Rothko’s awe-inspiring Seagram Murals (that room is one of my favourite places in London. Coincidentally, did you know that Mark Rothko was found dead the very same day those paintings reached the Tate Modern?)

But back on track. Calder is an artist I knew little about – mobiles, he is the guy who invented the mobile.This exhibition leads you through his developing practice; as an artist it’s so reassuring to find clear experimentation and progression. In my book, a good art exhibition is one you can fall into, appreciate without shuffling around, your nose in a leaflet or squinting at little labels. Calder was consuming from the start, with his little wire drawings of circus folk and animals; so deceptively simplistic, three-dimensional sculpted in the air – charming and witty.

I’ve gone back to basics, and have been exploring colour and tone; the innate substance and movement of paint. No concept, pure experimentation, and the pile of paintings my by easel makes me think it’s been a prolific few months. Painting because it feels good – no concept, just beautiful colours.